Arsenal have moved to formalise the next stage in Max Dowman\u2019s pathway after the teenage midfielder made his senior debut in August, aged just 15. Until now Dowman has been on schoolboy terms, a status that left him theoretically free to join another club while interest reportedly came from \u201cmany of the world\u2019s leading teams\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Athletic has reported that Dowman is “determined” to continue his career with Arsenal. Conversations over the next step were handled by his father and, according to the report, an agreement is in place to upgrade him to scholarship terms. That scholarship status is the step before a first professional contract and is described as “being finalised”.<\/p>\n
The scholarship would lock Dowman in for up to two years. Arsenal will also be able to offer a professional contract as soon as January. Those professional terms would not formally take effect until January 2027 but can be negotiated and pre-agreed from when Dowman, born on December 31, 2009, turns 16.<\/p>\n
The club\u2019s willingness to integrate very young players gives context to the decision. Mikel Arteta has a track record of trusting youngsters if he believes they are ready, previously handing a derby to Nwaneri in 2022 and overseeing the development of Bukayo Saka and Myles Lewis-Skelly.<\/p>\n
When Dowman made his debut, Arteta said it was “clear” that the rest of the squad already have a positive opinion about him\u2014”…because they kept on passing him the ball”. The manager added: \u201cIt is great to be able to change the energy in the stadium by bringing him in and he had an impact. He won a penalty on his debut at the Emirates. That\u2019s incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
For now the formal move to scholarship terms provides Arsenal with a contractual bridge between schoolboy status and a first professional deal, while securing the club\u2019s options as the youngster approaches the eligibility threshold for professional terms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arsenal have agreed scholarship terms to secure Max Dowman, with a professional deal to follow. Jan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3985,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,172],"tags":[983,1032,1077],"class_list":["post-3986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-epl","tag-agents","tag-contract-disputes","tag-contract-renewal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}